1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting head that ejects liquid such as ink, a method of manufacturing a liquid ejecting head, and a liquid ejection printing apparatus equipped with a liquid ejecting head, and more particularly, to a liquid ejecting head provided with a functional element, a method of manufacturing the liquid ejecting head, and a liquid ejection printing apparatus including the liquid ejecting head.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known that a liquid ejecting head provided in a liquid ejection printing apparatus has a functional element. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-79655 discloses a liquid ejecting head provided with a memory element as the functional element. In the configuration of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-79655, a memory element is attached to the back face opposite the face where a wiring member (electric wiring tape) connects a printing element board including printing elements to various terminals on a contact board that electrically connects the liquid ejecting head and the liquid ejection printing apparatus.
Since the conducting portions of the terminals are exposed to the outside, the exposed portions are plated in order to prevent corrosion of the exposed portions. Electroplating is typically used for the plating, and involves applying a voltage to the conducting portions of the deposition target terminals when depositing the plating film. When electroplating, plating leads (wires) are required in order to apply a voltage to the conducting portions of the terminals.
Plating leads may be categorized into functional element-specific plating leads for plating the conducting portions of the terminals specific to functional elements, and other plating leads for plating the conducting portions of all other terminals. These plating leads are respectively disposed at positions on different edges of the contact board, and are respectively cut off from the contact board after being used as electrodes in the plating deposition step. Doing so exposes the cut edges of the plating leads at the edges of the contact board. If a conductive substance such as ink adheres to these cut edges, there is a risk of unexpected leaks or shorts between terminals.
In order to avoid this problem, the related art covers the cut edges of the plating leads for the terminals that transmit high-voltage printing element driving signals, with insulating resin or other material. Meanwhile, the cut edges of plating leads that apply a voltage to the conducting portions of the functional element-specific terminals are often not covered with insulating resin, because these leads transmit signals of low voltage compared to the printing element driving signals.
Recently, more various functional elements compared to previous functional elements have come to be used. For example, functional elements having signal terminals with long voltage application times compared to previous functional elements have come to be used. In these conditions, an apparatus is more susceptible to the effects of conductive substances adhering to the cut edges of functional element-specific plating leads compared to the case of using functional elements configured as in the related art. Consequently, also for the cut edges of plating leads used to plate the conducting portions of functional element-specific terminals, it is required to take some kind of measures for preventing leaks and shorts.
As discussed above, in an arrangement of the related art, the functional element-specific plating leads and the other plating leads are disposed on respectively different edges of the contact board. For this reason, additionally applying an insulating resin or other material to the cut edges of the functional element-specific plating leads requires adding a new step to the process of the related art, which only applies insulating resin to the cut edges of the other plating leads. Thus, there is a risk of lowering the manufacturing efficiency of the contact board, and by extension, of the liquid ejecting head.